David:     I think someday I would kind of like to write a book. Have you ever had such a thought? David Mains saying, “Pity the person whose spouse seems to come up with that notion time and again.”

Intro:      Welcome to the Before We Go Podcast featuring Dr. David Mains and his wife, noted author Karen Mains. Here’s David and Karen Mains.

David:     I am here with my wife who’s written more books than she can keep track of and who also teaches courses about writing books and by golly you’re starting on another book Karen, aren’t you?

Karen:     Yeah, I am. I’m kind of excited about this one too. Everything I do I’m committed to the project while it lasts. But this one’s been growing in me for probably decades actually. And it’s had a point where it’s kind of like a little child that says “I want out. I want out.” At that point you better pay attention to it.

David:     Well, you better. I just know that means a lot of TV meals.

Karen:     Yeah, poor dear.

David:     I would say, you have a bit of a love-hate relationship with writing. You probably won’t agree but what was it about this new topic that pushed you over the line to go at it once again?

Karen:     Well, the topic is listening. Or specifically listening groups. And I just think we’re in a culture where people are not being heard. I mean I’ve spent a lot of time working with this process and developing it. And I just feel like there’s so many people crying out. “Hear me, listen to me, understand.”

David:     Even talking at each other would you say?

Karen:     Talking at each other. Talking over each other and the power of listening as I’ve discovered over the last decades is just extraordinary. And now brain scientists have begun to study with the use of MRIs. What happens in people’s brains before they are in a listening process? I mean a deep listening process and then they can tell that the brain has improved itself and grown and changed after that listening process when they take more MRIs. So, I just think it’s a topic that really needs to be approached.

David:     This is something that you have talked about for years. Can you go back to the origin when this first grabbed your attention?

Karen:     This is not the real origin, but I remember specifically coming across a book written by a Catholic nun. And it was on self-directed spiritual growth groups. But the formula on it was the listening group formula which I adapted. And then we trialed it for 10 years. I mean I have conducted personally over 200 listening groups. I’ve been a part of that many listening groups.

David:     When you say listening groups, I’m not sure people track with you. So, can you explain what a listening group is?

Karen:     Yeah. There’s a formula that we’ve developed. So, we have three or four people who gather together for the purpose of telling who they are and what’s going on in their lives and to listen, really listen to one another.

And so, there’s what I call an architecture. We do a little chit chatting as we gather and most of these people and most of my listening groups have not known one another.

David:     Now go back. You said you’ve done how many of these?

Karen:     I’ve been a part of 200 of them.

David:     Okay, so you’re the leader at the time?

Karen:     I’m the facilitator of the ones I’ve been a part of. So, we gather and there’s…

David:     Men and women or just women?

Karen:     Yeah, it can be men and women. But I’ve mostly worked with women because that’s just the way it’s fallen out. But we’ve done men and women or men’s groups. So, we gather and there’s the normal little bit of time spent and “how are you,”  “good to see you.” And waiting for the last person to get there.

David:     Where are you meeting in?

Karen:     In a home, it doesn’t matter. As long as there’s no interruption going on. Well, I think you could do this probably in a restaurant somewhere if you had a table into yourself. But it takes an hour and a half, maybe two hours.

David:     So, you’d have to leave a big tip.

Karen:     A big tip. And then we go into silent prayer. And that’s a time for centering and gathering our thoughts and thinking “What is it that I want to share with the group who will all be listening to me.” And at a certain point I say to the group, okay, let’s begin and who is ready to share.

David:     So far, how much time has been taken?

Karen:     No more than 10 minutes. Even that probably five or six.

David:     So pretty quickly. You’re giving time for people to sense the presence of the Lord and the group.

Karen:     Yeah, that’s right. To still themselves and to get into the place.

David:     So, then you’re saying who wants to share first and what do they share?

Karen:     I’ll say, “Who’s ready to share?” In the initial meetings very often, they tell about who they are, because people often don’t know one another. This is what my life has been, and these are the highlights that that kind of stuff goes on. But when we really get into the listening group process then they’re just telling who they are, what they’re dealing with in their lives.

David:     So, it’s easier for them?

Karen:     It’s easier for them. There’s some connection points. In fact, I had a psychologist, a clinical psychologist who was a friend because I felt like so much was happening, and I needed some advisement. So, she came and she attended a listening group session and that went on for several months as a participant. But she said to me, do you realize how quickly that group went into safety? Now I’m not looking for that because I’m not trained.

David:     Went into safety.

Karen:     They felt safe with one another.

David:     So, they could talk…

Karen:     They could talk and share. And I said, “I had no idea.” And she said, “Well they started right at that first session.”

So, the architecture of a listening group is designed for people to feel heard and to feel understood. And for them to hear and to understand. So then let’s say, we’re in the listening group and we’ve had our first time of initial quieting and being still. And so, then I say “Who is ready to share?” And someone says, “Well I’ll go first.” And then they just began to tell what’s on their heart or mind. The incidents that have happened that week or month or the things they’re struggling with or the good things that have happened and we do nothing but listening. We don’t interrupt. A person may reveal something that’s very painful. There are tears. We don’t say, “No dear, dear, let me pray for you.”

Nothing wrong with these things. We don’t go over and take their hand and put our arm around them which is sort of a natural expression of comfort when we see distress. And the reason we don’t is because all those good things interrupt the deep listening process, and they divert.

David:     So basically, you’re just trying to hear what the person is saying?

Karen:     We are making sure she or he knows that everyone else in that room is totally concentrated on what they are saying. And I actually don’t like it when people take notes. Because I think there’s something very powerful in the eye-to-eye contact where they look up and everyone is looking at you, not down at their note-taking.

So, then that person shares, and they’ll maybe take 15 minutes, sometimes a little more if there’s a crisis going on in their lives. And then it’s up to me as the facilitator to instinctively know when that person is done or when it’s time to move on.

David:     Do you have sometimes a talker who just goes on and on?

Karen:     No, I’ve never really had any problem with that because I’m in charge of the architecture of the group.

David:     Ok.

Karen:     So, they’ve shared, we go back into silence again after they share. And the group is trained that this is a listening silence and in that listening silence questions rise in the deep part of ourselves that we then ask when we come out of that silence of the one who has just shared. This listening silence, listening for the questions.

David:     Just a question. You’re not to give advice, you’re not to…

Karen:     No, none of that.

David:     You just ask questions, that’s all.

Karen:     We just ask questions.

David:     Sometimes I think I can frame questions.

Karen:     Yeah, that’s called a leading question and we don’t do that. We don’t do that. So that’s why I think these questions have to rise out of that little interim time of silence because they do think the Holy Spirit often prompts us questions that come out of that interim silence after they’ve shared that we would not probably have asked, except we had that silence.

David:     It’s also true that the Holy Spirit sometimes can say “Don’t ask that question.”

Karen:     Or don’t ask that question.

David:     It’s not appropriate.

Karen:     Yeah. So, then the group goes around, and we ask those questions of the… the first person who has shared. And then that person answers those questions as honestly as they are able to answer it. And they can choose not to answer a question if they feel like they’re not ready for it, it’s violating some issue of privacy that they don’t feel like they want to share at the time. But frankly, David, I can’t remember any time in 200 listening groups where someone has said I prefer not to answer that question.

Don’t you think that’s amazing? So, and I think that the reason for that is because of this feeling of safety and sort of sanctity that begins to develop in the listening process.

David:     What if a person is not a Christian? Do they feel comfortable in a setting where you’re saying, “Okay now we’re having time for silence and prayer?”

Karen:     Yeah. And if I were the leader and knew that they were not people of faith, I would try and make them feel comfortable and say, “A lot of us come from faith background and that’s the language we use to express ourselves. So, please don’t let that offset you. Use whatever language you can.”

And very often when people are dealing with dilemma or distress or articulating, I mean they will use very rough language because that’s where they’re coming from. And we don’t just, “Please don’t use those words,” because that’s part of their expressing their anguish. So anyway, that’s the model, that little section of the model

David:     Let’s just make sure I have this clear. That then the next person does that and the next person and the next person.

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     And I’m assuming that you don’t do that because you’re the leader and that after a while you get tired of trying to come up with what you want to share.

Karen:     Most of these groups have had three or four people in it and there’s just not time for me to share. And sometimes the group will say “Well we never we don’t get to hear from you Karen and we want you to be part of this.” Now the intriguing thing about this, David, is that even if I haven’t shared; let’s say in 150 of those 200 listening groups stretched over decade, decade and a half, I always feel heard. I feel like I’ve been listened to.

So, what the people, who know about the brain, understand, and teach is that when you feel heard and understood or when you are hearing in this deep way to understand there isn’t it what is called attunement. I think it is ATTUNEMENT that occurs between the listener and the speaker.

So, it’s just an extraordinary dynamic. That’s because the brain is synchronizing a committee or  oneness, a unity between the one who feels deeply heard and the one who is doing the deep listening.

David:     So, how long would a listening group go on?

Karen:     Well, I think an hour and a half.

David:     I wasn’t thinking that.

Karen:     Oh, I’m sorry.

David:     I was thinking, how many times would they meet?

Karen:     Well, you can do it as long as you want. I had one listening group I was part of that one for 18 months. But I really think what I’m wanting them to do is to learn how to be a part of a listening group and then eventually start their own listening group. So, we go for maybe 10 months. I have some listening groups that are starting now. We’ll meet twice a month and we’re doing it by Zoom.

David:     Is that working?

Karen:     I didn’t think it would, but we really reached that unity or that attunement in the listening process over Zoom. It’s kind of a wonderful gift particularly during these COVID-19 days when we’re isolated from one another.

David:     I have a feeling that you are…

Karen:     I didn’t finish to ask your question.

So, I think a group that goes for 10 months meaning even once a month or twice a month, that’s about time when they can end. And then hopefully they’ll go on and start other listening groups and choose however long they want to go.

David:     Do you think that anyone could duplicate the role you play?

Karen:     I thought so. And so, I did some listening group leader training and some of it is giftedness David that I don’t pay too much attention to.

David:     So, you’re answering me no not everyone can.

Karen:     I don’t think everyone can. I think that people can be trained to learn how to do this. You have to be comfortable with silence and a lot of people are not comfortable with silence. They don’t realize that silence is a very active thing even though we’re not hearing anything, a lot’s going on.

So, there’s probably kind of a test that needs to be developed for listening group leaders that would begin to filter out or say well this is an area where you need more training in. But I think people who have had any background in group leading have a head start perhaps in leading a listening group because they feel comfortable with the group process.

David:     I would say that you’re… I don’t mean it’s a negative. I just don’t know how to say it otherwise. You are a talker. It’s very easy for you to talk.

Karen:     Right.

David:     So, it’s quite interesting to me that you also apparently are very good at listening.

Karen:     Well, you know I tell people, David, and I’ve said this to you. That you are a much better listener than I am because I am such a talker. And you often give me a little nudge under the dining room table if we have guests and you’ll say, “Now we want to hear from George what are you doing?”  

David:     Did you notice how carefully I said you are a talker? I was quite good at how I did that.

Karen:     I really get enthralled with conversations perhaps and especially if they’re a new idea conversation or learning conversations. I can’t stand chit chat. So, this is something I have to discipline myself to do but I do step out of the talking mode into the listening mode. I mean there’s like a click that goes on in my psyche and I become a listener then.

David:     So, there’s no review. This is what I heard. I’ve seen progress any of that. It’s just that people listen and the bottom line is that they are feeling heard.

Karen:     Yeah. They feel heard and they feel understood. Now the interesting thing about that is, I don’t really even have to agree with that person. I don’t have to think that their thoughts are great ideas or whatever. But they just need to know that I’m hearing them  and I’m understanding them in order for it to have the physiological impact that it does.

David:     Is sometimes the person who hears the same person who’s talking? So, they hear themselves talking?

Karen:     Oh, that always happens. That always happens. When you feel listened to and heard, and you feel the freedom and the safety to express who you really are and what you’re really going through. I mean, David, people go through terrible things or have gone through terrible things. And to reach a point of safety where you can share what that is just an act of God, as far as I’m concerned. This is the way that God made us, so that we can heal and repair from the terrible things that have happened to us in our past.

David:     God has been good to us in that we have many friends all around the country because of the national media ministry we had. And one of those friends came into Chicago said, “Let me take you guys to dinner.” And all of a sudden you had a soulmate.

Karen:     Dr. Roger Vieth, a neural surgeon.

David:     I call him a brain surgeon.

Karen:      He’s a brain surgeon and Neuroscientist.

David:     He’s retired now. But all of a sudden you had talking and listening with him. I was there. And it was a part of that conversation.

Karen:     Yeah. this was when all the lights went on. This is probably what two decades back when I was just starting in the listening groups. And so, I explained to him this process. And then I said to him, “I’m just seeing enormous growth.” I mean we’ve been in people work, ministry work, all of our lives and I had never seen such rapid improvement in people’s lives. I mean they took on Goliath after they listened to. And he said, “Well have you read the recent what was it research papers on such and such and such and such?” And I desperately wanted to say to him, “Now which ones would those be, Roger?” Of course, I hadn’t read the latest Neuroscience research papers. I’m the least to bit of the very process on the listening process.

David:     But Roger never won ups. He’s a friend.

Karen:     Wonderful man.

David:     Yes, he is. And I remember him at that time talking about the IRA.

Karen:     Irish Resistance Army.

David:     Resistance army. And do you remember that story he told us?

Karen:     Yeah.

David:     All of a sudden you two were off to the races.

Karen:     That was the research paper he had referred to. And it looks like with IRA members because that’s been great troubles that have, you know, existed in Ireland for decades. They took them through a listening process, and I don’t know that.

David:     That is the people who are prisoners.

Karen:     IRA members who are prisoners. And they did give them brain scans ahead of the process because it was a research process. And then, I don’t know how long they went and after the process and discovered that there were these changes in the brains. But the most important thing was that these IRA members who were now in prison for these terrorist acts had total shifts in their personalities. Improvements in the personalities because they felt heard, and they understood. And there was no need then to be violent anymore.

David:     So, they didn’t necessarily got their captors to agree with them.

Karen:     No, of course not.

David:     They felt that this person heard them.

Karen:     Yeah. It would be the research scientists or sociologists who were working with them. It wouldn’t have been their captors. But that’s where this whole framework began to be lifted out and examined. One of the great gurus in this, his name is Daniel Siegel, in the whole aspect of the developing mind. And so, I’ve read a lot of his work and they all emphasize when people show up. And this is the last book was written to parents show up for your children, which means: be attentive, be there, listen to them, give them your presence. If parents can only do that 40% of the time in raising their children, their children will grow up with the capacities to be whole people, to be integrated in their personalities.

This is all psychological terminology. But I mean the psychological community is glommed on to this like crazy. And of course, that’s a lot of what therapy is. You have someone who listens to you and understand. But my buttons are pushed because this is something that most of us can learn to do.

David:     That evening with Roger set up other evenings to be able to talk about this and then eventually you gained enough courage to very timidly say, what to Roger?

Karen:     I manipulated him.

David:     That is funny. That is probably true.

Karen:     I asked him if he would co-author this book that I’m working on, on listening, and I have various draft titles like a draft title would be “Tell Me I Want To Hear And Understand.” But anyway, he just steers me into things I couldn’t possibly know by myself even doing the research because of his background.

David:     People wouldn’t know this but he actually… I don’t know, did he send you the actual books or did he tell you what titles to get?

Karen:     No, he told me what titles. So, I have been going through a pile. I mean there are seven to ten books that I’ve been reading the last month or two underlining, highlighting but it’s basically on this broad topic but coming from the experts who work in these fields. People’s work I would never know. And the interesting thing about them is this author, I mentioned Daniel Segal, who is a research psychiatrist. I guess he would be. So, he works with the data and sets up the neutral groups. He has moved in his writing which was the developing mind and the mindful brain. And this is really groundbreaking stuff.  But he’s moved from that kind of writing that’s addressed to the scientific community to popular writing. And his last book was The Power Of Showing Up and it’s addressed to parents. It’s a beautiful book. And they’ve synthesized this whole listening process that we’ve taken all this time to talk about and to just show up, show up, be there. If you show up 40% of the time that you’re raising your child even if you have difficult circumstances that child will be much more whole and integrated as they grow up.

David:     I’m from a ministerial background, as you know, and I don’t see…

Karen:     Oh, I just discovered it now, 59 years of marriage and ministry? I don’t think so.

David:     I’m framing the question.

Karen:     Okay, thank you. Shut up. Shut up instead of show up.

David:     I’m coming in carefully because I don’t want to sound negative. But as I think about the church, the church is more a telling organization than it is a listening organism. Is that fair or not?

Karen:     Yeah, sadly so. This is one of the things I’m so passionate about is, I think local churches who understand the power of this kind of a process and begin to integrate it into their telling and learning apparatus are going to see extraordinary human development. Human development that has remarkable spiritual outcomes. You know, David, God is the great listener. He is the one who is always listening to us. I don’t have my scripture in front of me right now, but I did a whole survey through scripture and God who is the listener. And we need to be modeling that in our church culture because it’s easy to have a theological concept. God is the listener and we do sometimes really experience him as a listener. We experience that I think mostly when he answers our prayers. So, we know that he’s been listening to our requests. But to have a church body that integrates this whole concept of listening into their functions, we begin to model to one another that God is the listener.

David:     If I take it in a slightly different direction, I think that times of revival often are characterized by the people being able to express their pain. And that it doesn’t work for me. What you’re saying somehow isn’t relating to the pain I feel and I’m not a good Christian.

Karen:     Oh honey, that’s a really interesting concept.

David:     And the whole process of revival often is people being able to say how much of a failure they feel in their spiritual walk and how they desperately want to be forgiven for this.

Karen:     Well, and certainly naming their sins or in adequacies in a confession process. But knowing that they’ve been heard and loved and accepted anyway. I mean David, I never ever thought of that but that’s exactly what’s happening there.

David:     Yeah. So, this is incredibly important. How long a process? Is this writing going to take and have you maintained your friendship with Dr. Vieth?

Karen:     He is stuck with me baby. I’ve done so much work on it. And I have pieces of stuff I’ve written through the years that I think if I can concentrate and do four to five hours a day, which is about all you can do in a writing process, that I could get this finished within six-month’s time. What I need is the publisher who buys into it as well.

David:     That’s another whole process.

Karen:     That’s a whole other process and it’s something that if people hear this, I would appreciate their prayers that there would be a publisher who would step forward.

David:     I’m asking a leading question because I’m almost running out of time now. When will you stop writing? Or do you think that this is something you’re going to be doing even as you are passing on to the next world and say “Wait, wait, just a minute, I have two more chapters to finish on this book.” And we’ve forgotten about listening and we’re into a whole new area because that’s how you think.

Karen:     Yeah. Well, I can’t make any promises.

David:     If I’m fair with our people listening, you had a series of books you want to write yet and I said just pick one character.

Karen:     You did. You did me a great favor. You can’t do them all and it’s probably true I won’t get them all done.

David:     Yeah, before we go.

Karen:     Before we go.

David:     If we get the listening book done. I said that’s the one that’s top of the list. Get that one done. Put these others away because you know you get old now, kid.

Karen:     This is the benefit of being married to the systematic thinker. You are the systematic thinker. I’m all over the place. So, yes, thank you for imposing that upon me. That was a gift.

David:     You’re always into the book that you’re working on. And those of you who know Karen, she’s doing a lot of books. Can’t even remember them all. And most of them you still can get them which is a great credit to your writing skills. But I’m saying that one of the reasons I wanted to have this time with you is for people to pray for you.

Karen:     Oh, that’s a lot better.

David:     Because this is hard work. It’s hard work. And I don’t know how many people God through his Holy Spirit said “Do a book on listening.” But one of the individuals he thought he could go to the well again was you and you kind of responded. And now this is a lot of work. An awful lot of work. I would say finish with the research.

Karen:     Yes. I’m done in the research, right. Which is, you know, people who don’t write books don’t understand that most of them require, you know, we often say you don’t know really when you start writing because a lot of that is research. And then there’s this internal organizational process that goes on continually. I mean I spent my prayer time yesterday morning writing the first paragraphs of the book on listening or telling. However, how we slanted. And I felt like that was the largest, you know, in tandem with me giving me this lovely opening for a book on this process. So, it becomes part of your life. You think about it. I was out gardening this morning and pulling weeds, me basically, and thinking about the book. And it just takes over, you know. Takes over your life.

David:     Yeah, I’m very aware of that. So yeah, do pray for Karen. This is a huge thing. I’m with you. I jokingly say that it. Well, maybe it’s not a joke.

Karen:     TV dinners we don’t do TV dinners.

David:     Well, you don’t pay any attention to anything else going on. And yes, I do TV dinners.

Karen:     You could take up cooking how about that.

David:     You do your part I’ll do my part.

Karen:     All right deal.

David:     Thank you. It’s very helpful. I think that you’ve piqued interest, so you have to get this project done. Yeah, the Lord be with you sweetheart.

Karen:     Thank you.

Outgo:     You’ve been listening to the Before We Go podcast. And if you would like to write to us, please send us an email at the following address,  hosts@beforewego.show. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, please remember to rate, review, and share on whatever platform you listen. This podcast is copyright 2020 by Mainstay Ministries, Post Office Box 30, Wheaton, Illinois, 60187.